IN the doghouse? You may have worked it out already, but saying sorry with a bunch of flowers really can make things better.

A criminal who apologises will seem less likely to commit the same crime again

An academic study goes even further, claiming that an apology could mean the difference between making up and breaking up.

It makes the aggrieved partner turn from thoughts of revenge to ones of forgiveness, a report in the journal PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences) concludes.

More seriously, a criminal who apologises will seem less likely to commit the same crime again in the eyes of the victim, the joint US study suggests. Psychologists from three US universities – Miami, Minnesota and UCLA in California – studied 337 adults who had been in a potentially damaging argument.

They found that conciliatory gestures made the victim feel the relationship was still valued, encouraging forgiveness.